


Polyphony

by saberteeth



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Character Study, Identity, M/M, Shaving, Twincest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 10:08:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28686876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saberteeth/pseuds/saberteeth
Summary: Dante and Vergil are together again, but are no longer identical. It feels like looking at a stranger.
Relationships: Dante/Vergil (Devil May Cry)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 97





	Polyphony

**Author's Note:**

> this is...p fluffy for me, so i hesitated in uploading this in case it was too corny, but what the hell
> 
> i have a LOT of feelings about the twins no longer being identical, so it's my headcanon that now that they're spending more time together their faces will shift to match each other again

Vergil still shaves in the underworld, never misses a day. He doesn’t bother with a mirror, just the edge of the Yamato and the neat, quick precision of his wrist movements as he drags the blade across his cheeks, chin, and neck.

Dante watches. He likes to watch, likes when Vergil tilts his head skyward and his throat is on display, practically begging for Dante’s fangs. Dante doesn’t bother to shave down here; when he’d turned 35 he’d given up on pretending to care and it’d turned from a daily ritual to a weekly one, then monthly, and now he doesn’t shave at all. He’s never been able to grow a full beard and his whiskers hang around as little more than a patchy longer-than-stubble and he just can’t bring himself to mind. It’s not like he cares what anybody down here thinks about him, other than Vergil.

Dante turns his attention back toward his twin as the thought passes his mind, admiring his dedication to personal grooming. Vergil’s hair has grown longer, to his shoulders, the same as Dante’s. But he still takes care to slick it back at the top, putting it in a semblance of style. Worrying about grooming and cleanliness is not something Dante’s been good at in a long time; if he can throw on a duster and look flashy then that’s good enough for him. But he does wonder, though.

“Hey, Verge,” he calls, scratching his chin and sitting on his ass. The chitinous ground of hell digs into his skin, and he grimaces.

“Hmm?” Vergil answers, not once pausing in his passes at his chin. He never misses a stroke.

“What d’ya think I’d look like, if I shaved and put my hair back like yours? Would I look terrible?”

Vergil snorts, but turns toward him with a small smirk pulling at one side of his lips, finally deciding he’s satisfied and returning Yamato to her sheath.

“Don’t be obtuse, Dante, you’d look exactly like me. We’re –”

But the sentence falls short on his lips. It doesn’t matter, Dante knows exactly what the words that died on his lips were.  _ Identical twins. _ Once, yes. But they weren’t anymore, were they? And yet, the phrase had been a near instinctive one for Vergil. It would’ve been for Dante too. He didn’t like to think about it much.

Vergil closes his mouth with a snap, and Dante chuckles awkwardly before hefting himself off the ground and slinging his sword over his shoulder. His tone is falsely cheery as he turns away, picking a random direction and determinedly walking in it. The conversation is left behind.

“Come on, Vergil, we should find shelter before nightfall.”

Vergil follows, but says nothing. Dante doesn’t miss his sigh.

* * *

There are water sources in hell, although they probably wouldn’t pass any sort of city regulation in the overworld. But the longer they stay down here (Dante refuses to use the word ‘live’, because that implies permanence) the more demonic they become, and the blood and ichor that passes for water will do.

They stand beside one such source now, having attempted something like bathing and having had a fill to drink. Peering into the blackened surface, it’s the first time Dante’s seen his reflection in...quite a while. Time passes differently in hell, and he can see it in grease matted in his hair, in the blood in his beard that refuses to leave, in the crinkles around his eyes.

He looks at Vergil. He’s worse for wear than normal, but still looks so much younger and fresh-faced than Dante does. Dante looks like he’s the one that’d been dead.

And in a way, he supposes, he has been. He lost his other half: he’d been a walking corpse for 15 years at this point. But Vergil had been an  _ actual _ corpse, and came out of it looking like he hadn’t aged a day.

At least his hair is the same length as Dante’s now. Unexpected benefits to hell’s lack of barber shops.

“Does it ever bother you?” Dante asks. Suddenly, he has a desperate need to know he’s not the only one so bothered by the dissimilitude between them. To know that he’s not the only one who feels it ache so badly it’s like a gaping wound in his side that gnaws at him till it’s dull. It feels wrong, his very flesh knows it’s wrong. This is not the body he’s meant to have.

He can feel himself regret it the moment the words leave his mouth, because he won’t be able to take one of two answers Vergil could give.

Vergil is silent. When Dante chances a look at him, he’s still staring into the blood-cum-water, considering his own reflection.

It’s a long time before he answers, “of course it does,” and the rush of relief that courses through Dante feels like a dead man taking a breath again.

* * *

“Your face is changing,” Vergil comments. He’s inside of Dante, but they’re not having sex, anymore. It’s hard to find shelter that will remain safe for more than a few hours at a time, but so far this cave has been home for three days; they take carnal comforts when they can. Today, they can afford to bask in the afterglow.

“That your way of calling me ugly? I know I’m getting older. Maybe you can lend me the Yamato and clean me up.”

Dante feels Vergil’s fist reflexively clench at his side, grasping at nothing without the familiar weight in his hand. It’d been a long time before Vergil had let go of the blade even to sleep, and Dante wonders again how much time has passed. If Nero is still upset with them, if he has a child of his own. If the shop is okay. If the girls are okay.

He worries, but when he looks at Vergil, who has Dante’s chin in his hand, he knows he made the right decision. He wouldn’t have made it much longer up there, without him.

“I would see that the underworld freezes over before I would use such a word to describe you,” says Vergil, and Dante stifles a chuckle at the phrasing. Vergil’s way of giving a compliment, though he says as matter-of-fact as he would talking about the weather. Perhaps that makes it even more special.

“Then what, then? Don’t tell me my eyes are permanently red now. I’ve noticed it’s harder and harder to shift fully back. I’d miss my heartbreaking baby blues.”

_ I’d lose another part of you, _ he doesn’t say.

But Vergil shakes his head, shifting inside of Dante, who shivers. He’ll take Vergil after this. He needs to.

In the meantime, Dante takes a moment to stare. Maybe Vergil’s face is changing too. Just the slightest, and he can’t tell what it even is that’s changed – Vergil’s face just looks more like it should, and he’s not even sure what the qualifier for that is.

“You look younger. You look…”

“Younger?”

“You look like you,” Vergil says, but doesn’t deign to follow it up with any elaborations. Instead, he just slips out of Dante and spreads his legs, waiting.

* * *

The drag of a blade over his face should be unfamiliar, but beneath his twin’s careful hand, it feels like home.

There’s another water source here, a warm one, and they stand in it, clothes discarded at the bank of the pool, hair pushed back, droplets running down their bodies. The fingertips of Vergil’s left hand rest at Dante’s right hip.

Shorn whiskers fall into the pool and float delicately on top of the water before continuing down the current, and Vergil runs a hand over Dante’s cleanshaven face.

Dante doesn’t have to look into the glossy reflection to know what will stare back at him, but he does anyway, runs his own hand down his face – but not in wonder, or fascination. Watching his changed features mirror his expression should be strange, he thinks, but all he feels is  _ right _ . Like he was always supposed to be this way. Like he’s come home.

“There. Now we look the same.”

It’s a superfluous statement, but Dante finds that he needed Vergil to say it.

He nods, fingertips twitching toward Vergil’s arm, aching to touch him, so he does. He curls his fingers around his twin’s forearm, pulling him close.

“This is how we are meant to be,” Vergil continues.

Dante nods, and replies.

“Don’t leave me again.”

Vergil shakes his head.

“Only with you by my side, brother.”

_ Brother, _ Dante thinks.  _ Twin. Home. _


End file.
